spectacular. eb ebay. >> i really like lowe's. i think there's more up side to this stock. >> he wants a little bit more. more "fast" at 5:00 p.m. tonight. watch "power lunch" which starts right now. >> announcer: halftime is over. "power lunch" and the second half of the trading day start right now. scott, thank you and welcome, everybody, to "power lunch." we have a pack show for you this afternoon. mary shapiro stepping down as the head of the securities and exchange commission. she's going to do it next month and we will have details. plus, what her departure means for wall street. two tech behemoth, facebook and apple are teaming up now. julia boorstin has all the just-released details. and from black friday to cyber monday, look at those -- well, people. we will recap the retail landscape as the holiday shopping eenz begins in earningest this weekend.

first, let's go to the nyse where sue herera is standing by. >> the markets improving a little bit right now. well off of our worst levels of the trading session. still in the red, however. the markets right now show the dow jones industrial average off 71 points onts trading day. the s&p 500 is down about 6 3/4. nasdaq composite down better than 1 1/2 points. meantime our top story, that change of leadership at securities and exchange commission. mary shapiro is stepping down as head of the s.e.c. and president obama is designating commission member elise walter as her replacement. eamon javers is in washington with the details. >> reporter: this is a bit of a surprise announcement. a lot of other names had been speculated over the past couple of days here on who might succeed mary shapiro over at s.e.c. but the tap goes to elise walter today. she is a sitting s.e.c.

commissioner now. that means that the president will not have to face a bruising confirmation battle up on capitol hill for her to take over as the chair of the s.e.c. what we're told is the president is likely to appoint somebody to fill out that term after elisse walter finishes up mary shapiro's term in 2014. we expect that the president will name somebody else to follow on after elisse walter. a little bit of complicated moving and shaking here but already the consideration in washington turning to mary shapiro's legacy. she took over at one of the darkest points in american financial history in january of 2009. the s.e.c. pointing out today that just in 2011 and 2012, they've had 1,469 enforcement actions. they say that's evidence of a real crackdown over at s.e.c. on wall street wrongdoing. of course, the dodd-frank rule makings have been so extensive in the wake of that financial

reform legislation, all of that wares mary shapiro's stamp. the flash crash will be one of the points they talk about when they talk about mary shapiro. they ask the exchange to create a consolidated mortgage trail. but of course, there are critics on both left and the right who accuse shapiro and the s.e.c. of either doing too much or not doing enough depending on their political or regulatory leanings. all of that will be hashed over here. then of course the speculation begins immediately of who the president might pick now to succeed elisse walter as chair over at s.e.c. >> thank you, eamon javers. let's dig down a little bit deeper and talk about what the departure of mary shapiro means for wall street. we're joined by jeff kilburg. he just talk a little bit about mary shapiro's legacy. how does a guy who's in the game view her and the change that may

come with miss walter? >> eamon hit the nail on the head, did she too do much or do too much wrong. main street as well as advisory firms like myself are very concerned with her initiative for tackling the money fund reforms. if she gets what she wants she'll essentially be pushing all of that money to the balance of the banks. therefore, she will redefine too big to fail. from my perspective, i'm home that the money from business stays as it is. one of the foundations of our short term borrow pentagon. >> maybe it was a problem she thinks needs to be fixed but a lot of people in the industry think it doesn't need to be fixed, specifically the idea of pricing that could go day to day and off the dollar. priced at the market. >> exactly. they're talk about a floating map that doesn't work. if you move $2.7 trillion in assets to the bank's balance sheet, it could be an opaque marker. therefore maybe there's some type of reform necessary but not as far as she wanted. we're very interested to see

what miss walter will do in the interim until theed a miss appoints a new -- >> why is that floating nab such a big thing? why do i care if it's 99.96 cents or it's 100.06 cents? >> great question. loss of principal. you put in $1 million overnight and you get that .996 overnight, you don't have a million dollars. investors won't utilize that investing tool anymore. it has to be preservation of capital and liquidity. that's what money funds are all about. >> they'd rather earn less at a bank than -- >> yes. >> -- than the other thing. >> it's called sleeping at night. jeff kilburg, we'll be back and talk about other more important topics, like notre dame. >> yes, we will, ty. meantime, the man accused of being behind one of the biggest insider trading scandals ever had his day in court today. bertha coombs is not far from me, live in lower manhattan with the details on that.

hi, bertha. >> reporter: hi, sue. it is the most lucrative insider trading scheme charge to date and the man charged is the highest profile person affiliated with sac capital charged today in the long running insider probe. 38-year-old matthew martoma, ahead of this morning's bail hearing, seemed very poised and almost upbeat as he arrived with his wife going past a gauntlet of reporters. a former fund manager for cr intrinsic, a unit of sac capital, is accused of obtaining inside information on an alzheimer's drug trial that netted his firm $276 million in profits. bail this morning set at $5 million. he'll have to get three financial signatories, one of them can be his wife. $2 million in cash or property he'll have to put up for that. he has fairly wide leeway as far as travel. he's able to go to the new york area and massachusetts and florida where he has homes. at his florida home that he was

arrested six days ago. martoma is the fifth person affiliated with sac capital who's charged in the long running insider probe that's so far achieved more than 70 convictions or please. though steven cohen, the sac chief, is not named in the complaint. the complaint does say that the owner of the firm was aware of those trades. mr. martoma will be back in court on december 26th for a preliminary hearing if he is not formally indicted first. >> thank you very much. let's turn our attention to the retail scene. everybody's talking about it. we got it all covered for you. julia boorstin is in los angeles with the latest on a deal between facebook and apple that bears on it. courtney reagan has all the numbers from black friday to cyber monday. brian schactman is in a land's end distribution center in wisconsin on how much cyber monday really matters. let's begin with julia. >> tyler, facebook is teaming up

with apple's itunes for its gifts initiative. a powerful alliance that could threaten other tech titans as they try to use social to drive music sales. starting today, facebook will offer its gifts users the ability to give their friends digital gift cards for itunes starting at $10. you can't gift just a song or an album. you can give, say, a $15 gift credit and recommend albums, movies, games and apps. the service e-mails the recipient a digital itunes code. gifts are currentsly just available to tens of millions of facebook's u.s. users, but will be able as gifts rolls out broadly. this bolsters facebook's retail business tapping into digital content and subscriptions which are the fastest online growing retail category. facebook won't comment on the business model but presumably facebook gets a cut and it does of course benefit when users were more engaged on the site. today facebook shares rallied on a pair of analyst upgrades. this partnership gives apple access to facebook's users securing its position as the

leading music distributor as it faces new competition from the likes of microsoft's xbox music, google music and amazon's cloud player. now of course, if facebook can convince more customers to hand over their credit card information using that itunes as a lure, that's of course a good way to get them to spend more money on facebook gifts down the line. >> thank you so much, julia. now the countdown is really on. no pressure. the workers are going back to the office. they're thinking they're going to be able to shop online. courtney reagan is on the retail beat for us. >> it looks like they are. from this weekend, i mean what fiscal cliff? according to the national retail federati federation, 139 million unique consumers shopped this weekend spending $59 billion. nearly 13% more than last year over that same weekend. the holiday event shopping is not over yet. $129 million are expected to shop online on this day, cyber monday. 35 million people shopped on thanksgiving day, up 25% from last year. guess those early hours worked.

64% of shoppers hit the stored or scoured the web on friday spending an average of $423 a person, up 6% from last year. apparel was the weekend's most popular item and department stores the most popular destination. followed by discount and electronic stores. but today is cyber monday and ibm's so far online sales are up almost 21% compared to last year. consumers appear to have been shopping on the way to work. 24% shopping on mobile devices by 10:00, it slipped a little bit as people got to work. iphone driving the most retail shopping more than any other device. more than 9% of total traffic. 12.5% using mobile devices to actually make those purchases, down slightly from earlier in the morning. traffic is expected to spike right around now as people take their lunch breaks. boo google's top five shernlging queries in the u.s. include

generally lap toll, nexus 7, tv, amazon, and tablet, wii and xbox. the weeks after christmas are especially important for land's end. it is now end by sears. it's shipping season for land's end. brian schactman is live at company headquarters in dodgeville, wisconsin. brian? >> reporter: hey, tyler, it is shipping season and it is important, but really have to mention that it's also evolving. cyber monday of course is a catchy phrase but it is not wholly accurate. items being fulfilled and shipped behind me are orders from yesterday. 150,000 will go through here. tomorrow though is when we see the actual impact from cyber monday when that number jumps to well over 180,000. we can tell you, they've already told us they are tracking well ahead of last year. the website actually had an hour this morning where 24,000 orders were processed.

that is a record. other interesting nuggets about today, here they'll monogram 1,200 items in an hour. and they'll hem 900 pairs of pants in the same amount of time. but cyber monday's actually part of a six-day thanksgiving strategy. every single day they have had virtual door busters. every day a different item, usually discounted. this fleece blanket usually $29.50. yesterday went on sale for $10 and sold out in 11 minutes. so cyber monday's part of a whole package. actually, ty, in about 30 minutes we'll talk to the land's end ceo. we're going to talk about the evolution of cyber monday. we're going to talk about whether the fiscal cliff has had any impant on this business, and of course we'll talk about that relationship with sears. back to you. >> thank you very much. is all that spending translating into green for investors? let's collection in with kayla tausche with a "market flash." >> interestingly enough, the retail sector is falling today in the red for most of the big

retailers that had those discounts. also was not the big winner even on friday techwise. so the wig question is how much will these discounts actually eat into the potential margins from those blowout sales. if you look, courtney said that department stores were the biggest destination but macy's and nordstrom are two of the biggest laggards on the s&p. costco which had heavily discounted things like the nexus 7, also down today. to congress now which is returning to deal with the biggest economic issue of the day -- that fiscal cliff. john harwood on whether lawmakers are getting any closer to a deal. and coming up on closing bell, pet smart's ceo robert moran will join us live to discuss how his company is faring this holiday season. that's all straight ahead. if lawmakers do not act to save the economy from falling off the fiscal cliff, $490 million would be cut from the centers for disease control and

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lawmakers, their bellies full, are returning to washington after the thanksgiving break. the senate officially returns to work in 45 minutes. congressional leaders expected to meet with the president again this week as they try to rise

above and come up with a deal to avert the fiscal cliff. on january 1st, of course, we would run off the cliff unless action is taken. if there's no deal before that, a series of tax cuts will expire. there will be spending cuts and there will be jobs lost. john harwood with the latest from washington now. john? >> tyler, i'm pretty sure those congressional leaders' bellies were full even before thanksgiving. as you can see from the meeting they had just before the thanksgiving break, they were off to a smiling start with the president of the united states but there hasn't been much progress made since then. let's go over the fiscal cliff by numbers. first of all, they're all one. there's one month left before we go over the cliff if nothing is done. two, there's 1.4 percentage points that the white house says would be shaved off of gdp if middle class taxes go up between now and then. there's about $1 trillion which a democratic aide in the senate tells me they would need for a

down payment deal to be done by the end of the year with the remaining three-quarters of the deal to be done early next year if they're going to get one. finally, there was one phone call over the weekend between president obama and house speaker john boehner. now i just heard from a white house official that tom done house, the head of the u.s. chamber, john engler, the head of the business u.s. roundtable are in the white house today meeting with staff. there hasn't been a lot of negotiating progress. i still think there is a generally optimistic mood this will get done but we have a lot of hard bargains between now and the end of the year. >> one of the sort of controversial men in the middle here has been grover norquist, one of the few guys in washington who goes by his own name, grover. his first name, i should say. there are reports that some republicans who signed his no tax hike pledge are backing away from him. in the "wall street journal" saturday, he said, no, nobody's backed off. what's the truth here? >> well, he's wrong about that. they are backing away from him. but i have to say, tyler, this

is an issue that's much bigger than grover norquist pcht republican party has staked out tax issue for a long time. it is not because of one individual and the pledge, although he's done a very effective job of marketing that and marketing himself. this is about a stance of the republicans as the party of less government. democrats as the party of more government. but i do think because republicans lost the election, because they've had a difficult time, new york jets fans might recognizefy said they've had the equivalent of a butt fumble over the last couple of months. republicans are on the defensive. they are backing away from grover and i think that is increasing the likelihood that we're going to get a deal. >> never thought the phrase butt fumble would be uttered on cnbc. leave it to harwood. >> especially from john harwood. but you never know. you never know. meantime, ty, state attorneys general have sounded the fiscal cliff alarm this well. 43 ags have sent a letter to congressional leadership's

urging them to extend the tax relief on the mortgage debt forgiveness. diana olick has the letter and she joins us with washington with more of the details on that. hi, diana. >> sue, you're right. five largest banks in this nation have already wiped out more than $6 billion of mortgage principle debt for thousands of borrowers under that giant mortgage settle many that just went into effect early this year. they've also wiped out according to the monitor of the settlement more than $13 billion worth of debt involved in short sales. that, say the nation's state attorney general provide rerelief to homeowners trying to get back on their feet. that quote comes to a letter signed by 43 state ags urging congress to extend the mortgage debt relief act that's been in effect for the last five years but which expires at the end of next month. mortgage debt relief is usualally taxable. if it is not extended, all

future debt relief -- that is your principal write-down, even foreclosures, becomes taxable resulting in $1.3 billion in tax increases on the very families who can least afford it. in a conference call with reporters last week, secretary of housing and urban development shaun donovan says we are worried it will put homeowners at risk of not being able to stay in their homes if the legislation is not extended. tom miller added, it would just be outrageous for them to neglect to do that. the extension of this tax relief is included in a larger tax cut bill that was passed out of the senate finance committee but again, like all other tax relief, it faces the danger of of the fiscal cliff. it's not just the mortgage settlements involved here. short sales have been a huge part of this housing recovery and if you have to pay taxes on a short sale -- let me tell you, most of those borrowers are just going to opt to go into foreclosure. sue? >> understandably so. diana, thank you very much. up next, we're analyzing the

analysts. on tap today, facebook, yahoo! and rimm. plus we'll talk live with the ceo of land's end to get his take on the official kickoff of the holiday shopping season. you're watching "power lunch" on cnbc. the national debt grew $112 million per month, on average, between june 2011 to june 2012. ♪ [ female announcer ] today, it's not just about who lives in the white house, it's about who lives in the yellow house, the green, and the apartment house, too. today we not only honor the oval office, but we honor the cubicle, and the home office as well. because today it's about all of us. and no matter who you are, you're the commander-in-chief of your own life. ♪

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[ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. fedex office. welcome back to "power lunch." worry's watching shares of mcmoran exploration. following a broader move downward with reports that we're going to have warmer weather and fewer consumers are going to be using that gas to heat their homes. you can see it's taking one of the biggest legs down following below its 200-day moving average. one of the heaviest exposed to that move. it's time to analyze. killer capital's jeff kilburg is here with his kate, little foot surgery, fixing a turf toe from his athletic days. san fred c. bernstein upgrading facebook from market perform to outperform. the stock down 31% since the ipo in may.

what do you say? >> it is a rare occasion. they actually get a tip of the hoodie. i like it. look at this chart. i like this cain. look at this chart here. people are going to get caught short i think in this name. it's something they want in their portfolio despite the fact it is still way below its ipo. >> goldman sachs adding yahoo! to its conviction buy list citing with capital allocations, action serving as a catalyst to drive a revaluation in the stock we believe the core business is worth more than the current stock price. that's a lot of words it say. >> it's a lot. honestly at this point, this far above the moving average, clearly the catalyst was about the rumor we stau about facebook and yahoo! talking. right now it is a little overturn. i'm a little tentative to get in at this price. >> you like the idea here? >> i do. >> cibc upgrading research in motion from sector underperfo

underperformer to sector outperformer. >> rating changes based on r.i.m.'s existing subscribers wanting to upgrade to bb 10. shares of rim 67% up over the past three months. >> our guy herb greenberg hit the nail on the head. this is unvestabl auninvestable. they have to get some of those users back, clearly. there was a mass exodus. if you're an investor, stay away. if you are a trader, yeah, you can chase some money here. it is going to be volatile but i do not like this stock. >> we'll be back and talk more later. take a listen, guys. >> nice. ♪ notre dame fight song >> that is killer's favorite song. notre dame back after a 20-year hiatus. how good is that for college football they're playing for the national championship once again? first brian schactman is at wisconsin on the land's end distribution center on this cyber monday.

hi, brian. >> sue, heather over here isn't too concerned with notre dame. she's concerned about the wisconsin badgers. she can handle about 2,000 packages in an hour here. she's also not very concerned about the fiscal cliff. we're going to talk exclusively with the ceo of land's end to see how concerned he is about the fiscal cliff and whether he's making any changes to how he does business. that's next on "power lunch." tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 when i'm trading, i'm totally focused. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and the streetsmart edge trading platform from charles schwab... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 gives me tools that help me find opportunities more easily. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can even access it from the cloud and trade on any computer. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and with schwab mobile, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can focus on trading anyplace, anytime. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 until i choose to focus on something else. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 all this with no trade minimums. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and only $8.95 a trade. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 open an account with a $50,000 deposit, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and get 6 months commission-free trades. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 call 1-800-433-9947.

metals markets are closing and gold prices are close right now. sharon epperson is tracking the action at the nymex for us. hi, sharon. >> hi, sue. gold traders say we're in bullish technical territory here with gold prices closing right around $1,750 an ounce, giving up a little bit of the gain from friday. but that $20 jump more than that to the high settling price in five weeks was key on friday. traders are now waiting for some key data coming out this week. what's going to happen to greece, of course. also looking into terms of u.s. economic data from durable goods to what happens with the gdp data on thursday. then we have at the end of the week china's official pmi data. all of that will be very important for the gold price as we also continue to talk about the fiscal cliff. a lot of traders see bullish

momentum in gold because of that. barclays saying we could see $1,810 for the gold price in the fourth quarter. as far as the other metals, we are looking at a mixed picture. copper will be key as well to see if the gains we've seen over the two weeks continue. back to you. we're on the downside here on the floor of the nyse. mary thompson joins me, although we're off of our worst levels of the day. some improvements. >> it's not really a surprise we're down today because traders said coming in to this we looked a little overbought, we had such a big move in the markets on frooird. basically we're seeing today techs pick up where they left off on friday, meaning they're one of the better performing sectors. that's why we've seen the broader markets come off their worst levels of the day. jackie will have a little bit more on that later. but again, techs have led the improvement that we've seen in the markets over the last hour or two. utilities also stronger today. they've been underperforming the market from the last five sessions or so. a turnaround today as investors

take a little bit more of a defensive approach to trading today. energy is the weakest sector in particular. we're seeing weakness in a lot of the natural gas stocks. there's some forecast for warmer weather in the month of december and that is hitting that group today. again energy the leading sector to the downside. mary mentioned the nasdaq and technologies. let's go to the nasdaq where jackie deangelis is following the big movers over there. >> as mary said, the nasdaq just popping in positive territory but ever so slightly. still performing better than the dow and the s&p today. amazon.com posting some gains today after it was the most visited retail site on black friday. online sales for black friday estimated to have surpassed a billion dollars for the first time ever. mobile devices driving 15% to those sales and the ipad driving nearly 90% of tablet traffic. apple seeing a gain of better than 2% today. meantime as cyber monday is well under way, ebay is on the move and best performer on the nasdaq

100. closing to close its gap with amazon as the cyber monday leader. biotech fueling some heat today. ill lumina is one of the biggest lossers there, down more than 3% after baird downgraded the stock citing competition from china. to the bond market now. let's see how things are moving right now. we have a little bit of a safe haven play in treasuries today because of a variety of things. certainly the fiscal cliff and the uncertainty surrounding that plays into the bid for treasuries today. also though the uncertainty in greece and specifically in catalonia spain is moving some traders into the treasury curve. a number of buybacks by the fed this week. i believe there are six. the yield curve right now, the yield on the 10-year holding at 1.659%. 30-year is up better than 2.675.

the countdown to christmas is on, 28 kaz days to go and ont we call cyber monday, brian schactman is at the land's end distribution center with a special guest. >> reporter: thank you, tyler. we're with edgar hubert, ceo of land's end, to talk about all things cyber monday and beyond. thanks for joining us. we've talked all day about the importance of cyber monday, is it actually important or is it just a huge marketing ploy, if you will. what are your thoughts? >> it is our biggest shopping day in the year. just to give you an idea, last year we handled 180,000 orders on cyber mourned here in this warehouse. and as of 11:00 a.m. this morning, we are 20% ahead of last year. we'll handle more than 200,000 orders. >> how is that relative to your whole holiday season or your whole year? is there a percentage? >> yeah. i mean its -- our whole holiday season from now on is extremely important that we do more than two-third of our business during the end of the year so it is extremely important to us. but we multiply by ten the number of orders on cyber monday versus a normal day.

>> another thing we discuss a lot on cnbc is the concept of the fiscal cliff. we like to talk to ceos about what they're doing differently. are you making any plans about doing business differently january 1 if this country goes over the cliff? >> not yet. we still expect very aggressive growth of the company in the u.s. as well as internationally. second part of our business is very important so we have time to adjust our investment over the first six months of 20 123 13 in case there is a change. >> say there is a dramatic slowdown in our economy, you would then re-evaluate? you're not even having the discussions right now? >> no, we don't. because we have enough time to react for the second half of next year so we just continue to invest in international growth as we speak at the moment. >> we cover a lot of publicly traded companies. your parent company is sears. they've owned you for about a decade. you've been with land's end for about a year-and-a-half. there's always been talk about them shedding land's end as they focus on more of their bigger

ticket items, lawn mowers and snow blowers and the like. how involved is sears in, say, your holiday strategy or anything that you do? >> we have a very close retail partnership with sears because we have 300 shops, land's end shops, in sears stores. we are working on some specific and exclusive holiday programs. other than that, we manage our businesses very separate and independently. >> as long as you continue to grow your profits, they're not that involved? what sort of discussions do you have with -- you talk to the ceo with any regularity? how frequent is that relationship used? >> i mean it's a frequent management relationship, a monthly touch bases and planned presentations and we are partner be up to manage strategic questions. as far as execution of the business, we are quite independent. >> land's end is turning a regular profit? >> we do. >> that's good for sears who regularly -- >> yeah. and for land's end. >> thank you very much, edgar

huber. guys, clearly cyber mourned not a myth for people here. you heard, they said it is their busiest time of the entire year. so it's their super bowl. new highs in the housing area. >> tyler, we're watching shares of home depot, lowe's and wlirl po whirlpool. a lot of these companies are double whammies because they're not only housing plays but also potentially retailers that could have had discounts and black friday and could have benefited from the upsurge in spending. but as you see, it is sort of a mixed bag across the board. home depot down by .33%. whirlpool down 1%. lowe's up just slightly above that flat line. >> kayla, thank you. now if you are an alum or just a fan of notre dame, it just doesn't get any better than it is right now. the undefeated irish football team going to the national championship game. they're going to play probably either georgia or alabama there. we will discuss how good it is for college football that the

fighting irish are back on top. you are watching "power lunch" on cnbc.

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on our internet, phone charges and cable, plus at office supply stores. rewards we put right back into our business. this is the only thing we've ever wanted to do and ink helps us do it. make your mark with ink from chase. some people were paying attention to notre dame/usc. but brian sullivan and i were watching the wahoos of virginia. you have a very special edition of "street signs" coming up. thank you, tyler, coming up on "street signs" for the next three days, it is our recovery

road trip. we are counting you down to the three best cities for the stock market over the past year. today we are in the third place city for the market. stocks here averaged a return of 20%. i'm not going to give too much away but i will say this -- the stands behind me, they sometimes cheer for a guy that went to virginia tech. find out who it is. the companies. a bunch of awesome guests. mandy and i are coming up on "street signs," kicking off the recovery road trip, three cities, three days. it is going to be delicious. at least it already has been for me today and you'll see why. coming up. >> thanks, brian sullivan. we'll tune in at the top of the hour. more now on the big story of the day. the holiday shopping season and what it means for retailers and shoppers with tablets stealing the show. so far this holiday season, consumers have a lot of options. jon fortt is in san jose looking at the models, the niche they're going for and some of the pros and cons of tablets.

jon? >> reporter: tyler, lots to cover. lots of tablets, so many i can't get through them all. but let's look at some of the big ones. first, ipads. three models mainly. the mini at $329, ipad 2 at $399, and the fourth generation, $499. they want everybody. pros, apple has the most apps. cons, apple has the most expensive tablet lineup and the screen resolution on the mini isn't as good as cheaper seven-inch tablets. next, kindle's fire and fire hd. fire had a pretty amazing $129 today only. the seven-inch hd at $199 -- the 8.9-inch hd, $299. amazon is targeting gamers with these tablets and some media consumers but the truth is they just don't have many apps available compared to apple's lineup. google's nexus tablets, two models a seven inches for $199 and 10 inches for $399. i'd include the samsung tablets

in this general grouping, too, as mainstream android tablets. more apps available but still not as many as apple. these are good for consumers and individuals doing work use but they're not really enterprise grade. finally microsoft with the surface at $499. runs windows rt. the selling point is microsoft office. all this pretty complicated but the bottom line -- ipads will sell the most but the cheaper tablets might do well for gifting, particularly that $129 low rez kindle fire on sale today. >> jon, thank you so much. notre dame is on top of the college football world after running the table and going undefeated during the regular season. the fighting irish will play for the national championship in january against the winner of the alabama-georgia game. but how good is it for college football that notre dame is back to its glory days? joining us by phone right now, b.j. schecter, executive editor of "sports illustrated." b.j., thanks for joining us. we appreciate it.

>> no problem. good afternoon. >> i got to tell you, full disclosure, my dad was a rabid notre dame fan. so i'm little bit biased on this story perhaps, but tell me what kind of impact you think notre dame going to this championship is going to have on college football as a whole. >> a huge impact, not only in fan interest but hype building up to the game. notre dame is the biggest brand name in college football. love them or hate them, it is kind of like the yankees in baseball and the cowboys in the nfl. they're the team everybody loves to hate. but people are going to watch them. there's a reason why they're the only singular school in college football to have its own tv deal. >> exactly. but what is it about the team itself that engenders that passion on both sides? you do either love them or you hate them. but what is it about the storied history of that team that

engenders that kind of passion? >> well, way book to knute rockne and win one for the gyp gipper, there is just the mystique about notre dame unlike any other school in college football. college football's filled with tradition, but going back to the glory days and all the national championships and let's be honest. there is a small subset of feelings amongst people that notre dame thinks, hey, we're a little holier and better and do everything a little more pure than everybody else. that kind of fuels that fire. but the bottom line is, we're talking about the most iconic program in college football history and when notre dame is good, everybody's paying attention. >> so what about -- we know that the ratings most likely are going to be extremely strong, whether you like notre dame or not. you're going to watch the game certainly. but what's the trickle-down effect in terms of merchandising

and sales by both notre dame and the other teams that are involved? >> well, notre dame traditionally, even when the irish have really struggled, they're not very good, their merchandise, whether it's their traditional blue or white shirts and they have the very simple gold helmet, or the logo, people recognize it throughout country. so that's going to sell. if notre dame ends up playing alabama in the national championship game, alabama, which has won two titles in the last three years, and is pretty close in terms of the tradition and brand recognition of notre dame, if that's the match-up, that is a ratings bonanza that will draw interest like no other title game that we've seen in recent history. >> b.j., thanks for joining us. appreciate it. >> any time. take care. well, joining us are two very happy notre dame alums, mary thompson, and jeff kilburg. jeff played for the fighting irish in the early '90s.

the kind of very early '90s, jeff. but nonetheless, you guys must be thrilled. i know you were over the moon this morning, jeff, when i first saw you in the office. >> absolutely, sue. congrats to coach brian kelly and all the folks in south bend. it is very thing to be number one in college football, but sue, we're also number one in the classroom. we successfully graduate more players than any other program. that is exactly why notre dame is a unique situation. i know mary can elaborate more, but it is a special place and special honor. we're going to bring it to 'bama! >> we can only hope. i think it's been a very special year for notre dame. they've had a great story line, very special players, specifically man tie ti te'o wht his grandmother and girlfriend in the same week, then just went out and played his heart out. that and a potential heisman candidate. brian kelly was criticized as a coach last year for criticizing his players. to see how his team's worked

together has been a great thing to watch. >> i'm happy for you both. happy for my dad as well. >> i like your green, sue. >> you know what? >> i'm wearing blue and gold today. we're both color coordinated. >> indeed. thanks, guys. ty, over to you. >> i want mary thompson to work the game. i want her to broadcast the game. >> absolutely! >> she knows more about college football than anybody i know. you too, killer. why not? >> i would like that, tyler. i would like that but i'd like you to be in the booth with me. think that would be fun. >> that would be great! let's talk about something that may be an even bigger thrill. the powerball jackpot. $425 million. i will go over the fiscal cliff for $425 million. it is the largest in the lottery's history. no tickets matched during saturday's drawing. what would you do with nearly a half billion dollar payout? give you some ideas when we come back. those surprising little things she does still make you take notice. there are a million reasons why.

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time for the power rundown. cnbc.com's john carney is with us, so is robert frank, our wealth editor. black friday sales down just a bit from last year at $11 billion despite the decision by many retailers -- maybe because

of the decision by many retailers to open their doors on thanksgiving. but is black friday really a good predictor of how the entire holiday season will shake out? what say, john carney? >> i think it is a good predictor, at least macro wise. if a product doesn't sell at all on black friday, that product is doomed. if you're a new tech company, you've come out with a device and nobody wants it on black friday, you're in a lot of trouble. >> is it a predictor in your view, robert? if those numbers were down this year a little bit from last, we don't know really whether it was because some people opened on thursday and some of those friday sales -- that would have been friday got cannibalized into thursday. >> i think can you so caught up in the hour by hour, day by day of this, you miss the larger picture. when i look at luxury sales, i look at wealthier consumers. this is not a good year for them. they're being very cautious. surveys, they actually plan to spend the same or less than last year. they're worried about the fiscal cliff. their taxes are going to go up so the heavy lifters in this economy, which are the affluent, aren't going to spend this year. that's bad.

>> talk about warren buffett, always willing to stir the pot. op-ed in the "new york times" this morning, he says that the rich pay a lower tax rate on their incomes than the middle class does. it's a point he's made before. as robert frank points out, what mr. buffett does not mention is that, on average, very few americans actually pay their official tax rate. >> that's right. we're going to get into this a lot more on "street signs." people can read it on cnbc.com today. the other important point to make on this, it is just not a lot of money and it is not a lot of people. it is sort of a minor problem in the grand scheme of the economy. it is really about .1% of the taxpayers and it's maybe $5 billion to $10 billion a year. relative to a $1 trillion deficit -- not saying it's nothing, but it's just such a tiny amount -- >> people at his income level are paying that. >> i have to say, if we're going to have a big tax debate, let's have one that really matters, now about this warren buffett rule which won't raise enough revenue to make a dime's worth

of difference whether it comes to the federal budget. let's figure out what do we want to use our tax code for and what do we have to change to make it do that. >> let's move on to the next one which would put you in -- give you a real tax problem here. the powerball jackpot set for a record $425 million this wednesday. no winner over the weekend. what would you do with a half billion that came as a windfall to you? >> first thing i'd do, i'd give everybody i know a lot of money and say don't come back again. here you go. i'm going to seed all your brilliant ideas but that's all you get. second, i think i would look for -- a lot like peter thiel has done, look for underinvested ideas, writers, artists, technology that aren't in favor and therefore aren't getting any money. hey, i got $425 million. spread a little bit of that around. >> you'd give a lot of that away. >> yes. >> very noble. i'd be a little more practical. i would do the first thing. >> very noble he said dryly. >> the first thing sid's write a

$220 million check to the government which is what you're going to have to do next year. even if obama's tax hikes don't go into effect. that's a lot of money especially new york state, new york city taxes over 52%. then i'd take that giant check and bring it to washington. you know they have that ad campaign, yeah, that kind of rich? that kind of check is that kind of rich. >> gentlemen, thank you very much. sue, down to you. i wonder what sue would do? >> i would pay for the three college educations that i'm going to have to fund all at the same time. that would be the first thing i'd do. there's a lot of good that you could do with that money. who knows? good luck to everybody who's got a ticket. coming up in the next hour, the recovery road trip kickoff. day one of a three-day tour of the top cities for stocks. "street signs" reveals the number three mystery city straight ahead. we're back in a minute with a market update. but when i was in an accident... i was worried the health care system spoke a language all its own with unitedhealthcare, i got help that fit my life.

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is this a trick to get my spot? [ male announcer ] break from the holiday stress. save on ground shipping at fedex office. you can stay in and like something... or you can get out there and actually like something. the lexus december to remember sales event is on. this is the pursuit of perfection. let's get you up to date on the markets. the dow jones industrial average is off 74 points. the s&p 500 off 6 1/2. nasdaq's in the green, techs leading today, up one point. >> we had a nice week last week when congress was away. congress is back. the dow is down. m